


Used To Be

by SpicedGold



Category: Naruto
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Angst, Canon Compliant, Changing expectations, F/M, Life Doesn't always work out the way you want it to, Mikoto-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 06:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17259170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicedGold/pseuds/SpicedGold
Summary: When Itachi is born, Mikoto is sure things will get better.Things will go back to the way they used to be





	Used To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year, have some angst.

When Itachi is born, Mikoto is sure things will get better.

Life had been strained before he arrived; there had been talk of wars brewing, of things going wrong, and the ninja community was stretched thin and overworked. Fugaku is terse and short with her, and she finds respite in the evenings that he comes home from work so late that she is already asleep.

But Itachi changes that. Fugaku is suddenly himself again, the way he used to be, the way he was when she fell in love with him. He is careful and proud with their son, making an effort to come home every day, to help out where he can. He is doting and attentive with her, and she hears more ‘I love you’s and ‘thank you’s than she has heard in a while. She feels relieved, certain that life will settle back to its state ‘before’, and Itachi is the thing that binds them together when they had drifted apart.

At first, she is delighted at the genius he shows. She is proud when he starts walking early, she is overcome with joy when he begins speaking in short, clipped sentences. She sees how he watches the world, taking it all in. He looks like her, but acts just like his father, and she glows when she sees that, because he is their perfect blend, their wonderful, talented legacy.

She helps him when he expresses interest in ninjutsu, teaches him to mould his tiny hands around the handle of a kunai. He is a quick learner, and she is the only mother with a three-year-old with perfect aim and quick reflexes, and the start of chakra control. And Fugaku is as proud as she is, and takes Itachi regularly to the training grounds, and they both return smiling and out of breath, and life sits for a while in a state of idealistic calm.

Itachi is sweet, and quiet, and respectful, and she watches him grow, watches his father dote on him. She and Fugaku are closer than ever, the way things used to be, and when the moonlight shines, and the world is silent, she thanks the universe for giving them Itachi, who is the glue that binds them together.

Then the war starts, and suddenly she and Fugaku are ripped apart again. He is away for days at a time, and she doesn’t know if he’ll come home. It’s different this time, though. She _wants_ him to come home. She misses him. She feels lost without him. Her life is incomplete when he is not in it.

Itachi is young and naïve, and only knows that there is distant fighting going on. He practices at home, until one day he ventures away from her watchful eye and onto the battleground. From then on, he helps. He helps find the injured, he carries water to the soldiers, he is determined to make a difference, to do his best.

They both encourage it, because the younger he learns that the world needs people as strong as him, the better. They are in agreement again, until Fugaku takes Itachi right into the carnage. The boy comes home stony faced and silent, weighed down under the entirety of the world, and it is that night that she and Fugaku have their first fight in a long time.

Usually, they can talk things out. Usually, they can speak rationally. Neither are prone to losing their temper, and they both have excellent self-control.

She loses hers first. “You took him to see a massacre!”

“He needs to learn!”

“He’s four years old!”

She can’t remember who turned away first, but they both slam doors – him, the front, her, the back – and storm away in opposite directions. She spends the night in Itachi’s room. She doesn’t know if Fugaku returns.

Itachi spends three days in complete silence.

Fugaku, only slightly more stubborn than his son, manages six.

Mikoto matches him, silence for silence, terse word for terse word.

She wants Itachi to step back and be a child. Fugaku wants him to embrace what he’s learned and further his skills. As easily as Itachi brought them back together, he pulls them apart. They are polarized in their goals for him. She wants a baby, he wants a warrior.

Itachi just watches them.

When the war is finally over, Itachi takes to leaving early in the mornings to spend time alone in the forest. His talent as a young shinobi and his intelligence over his peers has alienated him, and he has no friends. None suit his needs. He is self-critical and unnervingly focused, and Mikoto can see Fugaku’s frown on his face.

They are barely speaking again. She lets the silence linger, because she could be just as stubborn, and just as set in her ways, and she won’t give him the satisfaction of giving in first.

It’s been three days since he last came home, and then suddenly he’s there, with a bunch of flowers, and his sheepish, uncomfortable expression on that she hasn’t seen since they were newlyweds, and he apologises. They agree to back off on Itachi, let him grow at his own pace, let him enjoy the peace time, however long it will last.

Life goes back to normal. They talk in the mornings and the evenings. They trade smiles and glances, the way they used to – before Itachi, before the war, before the tension.

Itachi brings Shisui home one day, and the house is loud. Itachi barely speaks, but Shisui is never silent. Itachi hangs onto his every word, absorbing everything the older boy says and does. It’s Fugaku who makes the comparison first.

“They’re like us,” he murmurs one day, as Shisui leaps dramatically around the garden, demonstrating who knows what, and Itachi sits and nods and keeps quiet.

And he’s right, of course. Because in the early days of their relationship, Fugaku was silent and sullen and stand-offish, and Mikoto was the ice breaker, the one who insisted they do things, they work for things, they become something. It makes her smile, because she loves the idea of lonely little Itachi having someone to follow.

With Shisui around, Itachi is less tense. He requires less attention, he asks for less, he becomes more independent. It is both heart breaking and heart-warming, to see her boy trying so hard to grow up. She wants him to remain an innocent child forever, but at the same time she sees how he compares to others his age, and he is a true genius. A normal childhood was never in the cards for him.

With Itachi and Shisui paired off and spending all their free time together, Mikoto finds herself with more time to do nothing. She is lonely during the day. Fugaku makes sure she is not lonely during the night, and it’s tender and sweet, the way it used to be. They discuss her starting missions again.

Before she can make a true decision, she finds out she is pregnant again. It’s a surprise, a blessing, and it pulls them close, closer, once more. Itachi is overwhelmed at the news, trying to figure out how to fit it into his life and into his heart.

“I want a brother,” he says, looking as though he has put a lot of thought into this.

She knows it’s wrong, but her first thought is _I want a child less talented than you._

Because Itachi grows too fast, learns too quickly, does too many things, outdistances himself from everyone his age. If not for Shisui – and thank god for him, Mikoto is so grateful he’s around – Itachi would be entirely alone. She hopes that changes in the Academy.

The first few months after Sasuke is born feel like a magical, underwater dream. Itachi is smiling and happy, so childlike and beautiful, fawning over his baby brother in wonderment. He sits for ages with Sasuke in his lap, studying him and cooing at him. Fugaku is present and strong, making sure everything Mikoto needs is there, making sure she and the baby are well taken care of.

She looks at Sasuke and thinks, _It won’t be the same with you. You won’t have to grow up in a war._

The world is calm around them.

But calm never lasts, and the Nine-Tails attacks the Leaf village. She leaves Sasuke in Itachi’s care and rushes to help where she can. It is a nerve-wracking few hours, being unaware of where her children are. But she spots Itachi in the aftermath, with Sasuke held safely to his chest, a girl safe behind him, and he stands square in the wreckage with his head held high.

He is just like his father, all five years and a life time’s worth of patience and wisdom of him. She feels less afraid for the future.

Itachi starts at the Academy, and life settles once more.

She and Fugaku are speaking like they usually do. But it’s Itachi that causes the next rift, and it’s the argument over his talents and abilities.

Fugaku wants Itachi to graduate early. Mikoto does not. She doesn’t want him to spend the rest of his life unable to empathize with anyone his age. She doesn’t want him to be exposed to the things he shouldn’t be exposed to. She puts her foot down, refuses to sign for him to be moved up to a higher class.

The talent and genius that she once delighted at in her son now seems more like a curse than anything else. His natural abilities have stripped him of the opportunity to live a normal life. It’s taken away his childhood and his innocence, and she hates how easily he learns, hates how he never struggles, never needs to back off and think. He glides onwards, Shisui’s shadow, Fugaku’s pride, and her nightmare.

The argument hangs in the air for weeks, until Itachi comes to her personally, and explains, in his soft and reasonable way, that he needs to move up and be better. He needs to improve, to protect Sasuke. To be the best shinobi he can be. To bring the whole world to peace.

Big dreams in a tiny child, and she relents.

He graduates at the end of the year and is placed into a genin team. He is seven years old. His team mates are twelve.

 

 

She knows how he would be pushed if this was still war time, so for now she relaxes with the knowledge that he’s safe as a genin. Nothing is going to happen to him, not when he’s chasing cats and weeding gardens and sneaking out the house to visit Shisui.

Itachi grows frustrated with genin missions quickly, and the tension sits across the entire house. Even Sasuke is cautious, quiet. Fugaku looks at her, and she knows what he is thinking. He wants to push Itachi to Chuunin.

Both children are asleep when she starts the conversation. “Leave him. He’s pushed too much.”

“He is a genius. He’s stagnating with his genin team. He deserves better.”

“What is better about more dangerous missions?”

“I have faith in him.” Fugaku’s reply is like a slap in the face. _He_ has faith in their child, and the implication is that _she_ does not. That she thinks him lesser than he is, incapable and unable to be a shinobi. That she cannot recognise the talent in their son, the ease with which he handles everything.

It’s pride that stops her from retaliating. She stands tall, weighing her words and thoughts. And then, like he always does, she leaves without saying anything. The fight isn’t worth it. Her marriage is more important than a debate on how she feels about her son’s future.

Isn’t it?

Itachi will be a shinobi. He will be a very good shinobi. She cannot stop that from happening, but she wishes that she could.

“You used to listen to me,” she says one morning, before Sasuke awakes, and while Itachi is out of earshot. “You used to care about my opinion.”

She wonders what he is thinking, then, as he looks at her with an unreadable expression. Maybe he remembers the days they were friends and lovers, and more than they are now. Maybe he remembers the times they were united in everything. Maybe he remembers the times before Itachi, when they believed nothing would come between them.

She knows he remembers it all, because most of those memories are Sharingan bright in her mind, and she knows they are in his as well.

Since Itachi was born, she has barely used her Sharingan.

She doesn’t want to remember the way things are now.

 

 

Itachi takes his Chuunin exam alone, because his team is not good enough.

He breezes through it, and she knows she should be proud, but she is worried instead.

Fugaku is pleased with the results, and he softens around her, knowing how Itachi stresses her.

“He’s doing well,” he offers tentatively, trying to coax a conversation from her.

She knows he is doing well, because Itachi wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfect. He is his father’s son. He’s special, and his genius is awful and beautiful.

“Nothing but perfection,” she retorts, half out the door, wanting to cease all conversation because there is no point to it anymore. All they do is argue. “That’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

He catches her wrist. Looks her in the eyes, deep and understanding and wanting, the way he used to. “And it’s what I’ve got.”

He squeezes her wrist slightly, as though wishing to push those words into her skin, into her heart. They’re meant for her, the same way Itachi is meant for greatness.

“Please,” he says, and it’s unusual for him to say it, but she supposes she’s pushed him so far away by now that he thinks this is the only way to get her back. “Talk to me.”

His is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Tension in the village runs through him. He has given up trying to hide it from Itachi and Shisui. He treats them both like the adults they are not, and she wishes he would stop. Stop telling them how cruel the world is, stop stripping them of all their innocence. Stop dragging them into the politics surrounding the clan, into the rampant discrimination that they have been facing for years.

“I’m trying to protect him,” he says, suddenly back in tune with her thoughts, and her heart leaps because maybe things will get better. “The stronger he is, the better he can protect himself, and us, and Sasuke. I don’t want him to have to fear for anything.”

“He fears nothing.”

They are out of sync again within a moment, no longer in the same rhythm. Her heart goes one way, and his goes the other.

He needs her support, but she’s too far gone to offer it. She is trying to pull Sasuke down a different path, and Fugaku is following behind Itachi. Their goals are different. Their futures are different.

Their children are different.

The fleeting thought passes through her that she could take Sasuke and leave, just walk away. But she can’t leave Itachi, and she doesn’t - she truly doesn’t - want to turn her back on her husband.

“Talk to me,” he repeats, almost pleadingly, but all she can see is her child climbing the ranks, and going out into a dangerous, deadly world, with nothing to protect him but his wits and eyes and genius. “Like it was before.”

She turns away. “Things are not the way they used to be.”

 

 

When the word ‘Anbu’ starts being tossed around, she and Fugaku stop speaking to each other by some silent agreement. They don’t discuss Itachi, they don’t discuss Sasuke. They don’t even talk about the Leaf closing in around them.

She knows they are being watched, she knows the Anbu has the entire compound under surveillance, and they track Itachi’s movements obsessively. She knows something is going to happen, and it does occur to her that having Itachi on the inside of Anbu might make a difference.

It might change the direction life is going.

It might stop Fugaku’s stupid plans for a coup – plans they no longer discuss.

Itachi and Shisui know about it, and she hates that. She hates the way Itachi watches her when he’s at home. His clever eyes flick between her and Fugaku, and she feels as though he sees more than she reveals.

She does not try to stop him when he goes to be assessed for Anbu. She says nothing to him, and he says nothing to her. Shisui does the talking, as he always does, and Itachi just stands at his side, a silent, deadly weapon.

She misses her son.

He pulled them together, and he pulls them apart. They are divided when he’s around, and she knows they are supposed to provide a united front. But all she can think is _He’s too young for this. Why didn’t you let him just be a baby?_

He comes back from his first Anbu mission unscathed, and Fugaku is visibly pleased. The second goes well, and the third is fine. The fourth, they are called to the hospital, where Itachi sits with a broken arm and too many cuts and grazes to count. He is weary and worn, and stays close to Kakashi’s side.

The Sharingan shines bright in his eyes, despite the safety of where he is, and Mikoto worries about what he’s seen. It’s all classified, of course, and he never talks about it, but until he is called on his next mission he refuses to talk to anyone but Sasuke. Even Shisui is treated to silence, but he doesn’t mind, and still takes Itachi’s hand and leads him wherever he wants to go, and provides a constant soundtrack for their interactions.

 

 

“He’s not coping,” she says, knowing that even in the dark silence of their bedroom, Fugaku will hear her. He will hear her, and she hopes that he will also listen. “He’s too young. Anbu is going to break him down.”

“He’s going to change our future.”

They both want a revolution, but they want it in different ways. He can see no way but force, and that is what Itachi is being primed for. She looks into his ebony eyes when he is home, but he is not her son anymore. He doesn’t belong to her; he belongs to Konoha.

 _I’m meant to have two children_ , she thinks. _But there’s only Sasuke._

Itachi drifts away from both her and Fugaku. Her family is a triangle, growing bigger every day, and poor Sasuke is in the centre, unsure of which corner to run to. He chooses her, because Fugaku has too much going on to give his youngest son much time, and Itachi is working, always working, and offers nothing but empty promises and disappointment.

 

 

Things get tenser. The Uchiha are restless, and Fugaku works to stop an early revolt. Itachi and Shisui are exhausted, and she and Fugaku argue over their health.

Everything is reaching a boiling point, and they seem unable to speak to each other without snapping.

“They’re both done,” she hisses. “They are _done_ , and drained, and you can see it. Why are you pushing them like this?”

Itachi is pulled in so many directions, and all she wants is to pull him against her and hold him and protect him against the world. He is a ghost most days, pale and fatigued, and she knows he spends equal nights at home and with Shisui.

He is exhausted and over-worked, but Fugaku doesn’t look much better. She takes longer to notice it, because she has been spending her time watching the gradual decline in verve in both Itachi and Shisui.

She has caught them together a few times, doing things they should not be doing, but she says nothing because Shisui whispers things that Itachi needs to hear. She overhears him late at night, when she cannot sleep, behind Itachi’s bedroom door, in a voice that trembles with truth, “I love you, Itachi. I love you so much. It’s gonna be okay, we’ll handle it. We’ve got this.”

There are pauses and gasps, and she’s not stupid, she knows exactly what’s going on.

 _They’re just like us_ , she thinks once again, watching Fugaku sleep. His face is creased with weary lines. _Remember how we used to do that too? Remember the things we would whisper?_

Just as she grounded Fugaku and led him into a happy life, so Shisui does for Itachi.

Things will be okay, she thinks, as long as Shisui is there.

 

 

Within a week, Shisui is no longer there.

She finds Itachi sitting on the porch in a pool of moonlight, legs dangling over the edge, bare feet swinging in the moonlight. He finally looks like her son again, stripped of any weapons, no longer Itachi the Prodigy Anbu Captain, but just Itachi, her oldest son.

He says nothing when she sits next to him. His face is as impassive as ever. His father’s face; the silent, brooding one. He’s been through so much in the last few days, and she feels a swell of pride at Fugaku, because he was the one who defended Itachi against interrogation regarding Shisui’s sudden death.

Itachi hesitates for a fraction before he leans closer to her. She waits until he is calm, and comfortable, before she eases an arm around him. He presses his face against her shoulder. He stays completely silent, but occasionally his body jerks softly, and she can feel a patch of wet warmth spreading where his eyes are hidden.

She knows that she is a poor substitute for whom he really wants. But she’s there, at least, and she holds him until he doesn’t want to be held anymore. There is a burning flare of anger in her chest, because Shisui would be alive if it wasn’t for Danzo, and Hiruzen, and all the politics that have surrounded her clan for years. The coup might be necessary, and she could see that, but she hated the idea of Itachi being central to its execution. She has pleaded with Fugaku not to involve him, but he hadn’t listened.

And now it had come to this.

She has no more words. She cannot fight against this anymore.

She tucks Itachi into bed that night, for the first time since he graduated the Academy. He is still quiet, and mournful, and she wants to comfort him more, but doesn’t know what else to give. She barely knows him now. She doesn’t know what he wants or needs or thinks. He’s barely thirteen and a stranger to her.

She checks on Sasuke, then goes to bed.

There is no conversation between her and her husband. She has nothing to add.

Shisui’s death said it all.

Fugaku looks at her almost sadly. He misses the past, too. He misses what they used to be. When the silence goes on, and on, with no sign of breaking, he says softly, “You used to talk to me.”

She replies swiftly, voice neutral. “You used to listen.”

 

 

“Things will change soon,” he assures her.

She doesn’t answer. There isn’t a point; they have no life left. All she does is dote on Sasuke, and keep a wary eye on Itachi.

“Don’t you want that?” he presses, trying to get her to talk. The silence has gone on for so long. Days, or weeks.

She isn’t sure she even remembers how to talk to him. She only talks to Sasuke these days, soothing and placating, because Itachi is distant and distracted and drenched in sorrow.

But she looks at him, finally, steadfastly, and answers, “I used to want it. I used to want things to change. I used to want a family, and I used to want to be with you, and I used to love the time we spent together.”

Itachi is hard to love and even harder to understand, and she doesn’t know where her child went, but he’s not hers anymore. He’s not hers, he’s not a child, he’s not Itachi, and she knows why.

“You’ve turned him into a monster. You’ve turned him into a killer.”

“He’s our saviour,” Fugaku insists. He comes closer, suddenly desperate. “Mikoto, darling, he’s going to help us. Back to the way things were. He’ll do everything I can’t.”

“You’re hiding behind the coup, and his achievements,” she says stiffly. She keeps distance between them. He tries to close it. “You think you can bring peace and happiness to the Leaf? You can’t even achieve that in your own family.”

The discrimination, the tension, it has been wearing them both down for years. The whispers when she walks down the streets, the distrust when Fugaku is speaking to civilians, the looks they get when Sasuke tries to mingle with his classmates. They have been shunned and pushed aside, they have been looked at with disdain and suspicion, and it should have pushed them closer together, but it didn’t.

It flung them so far apart Mikoto can’t even see him anymore. Not the way he used to be.

And since Shisui died something has broken inside Itachi, and she is terrified of what he might do. His face haunts her. Even Fugaku is wary of him now, unsure how to speak to him or how to act.

There isn’t a trace of calm left in the house. It’s affecting Sasuke, he’s snappy and short-tempered. He is trying not to be affected by Itachi’s absence, but it’s easy to see how it upsets him.

Most nights, Itachi does not come home, and Mikoto has been sleeping alone in his room. When Itachi does come home, he goes to Sasuke’s room and sleeps on the floor.

Fugaku has given up trying to communicate with anyone. He does his work, but he and Itachi are at odds with each other, and Mikoto wonders how long it will take before Itachi retaliates against what he’s being asked to do for the clan.

“Will you leave?” Fugaku asks one night, when Itachi has not come home again, and Sasuke has gone to bed disappointed.

She knows she should be trying harder. She should be making an effort. He cannot hold his clan and their marriage together alone. “No. I’ll stay with you.”

She hasn’t left him because she doesn’t want Sasuke to deal with that. She is part of the Head family of the clan, and there is an image to maintain. She cannot leave.

She doesn’t want to, but sometimes she thinks she does.

She still loves him, and always has. Theirs was a love that was made to last, and it has. Because Uchihas play for keeps – especially in love. She is grateful for that. She’s grateful to have him, even if things didn’t go the way they planned.

Whatever she said must have given him hope, because he smiles a tired smile at her, and she finally returns it, and things seem a bit less tense. Almost like it used to be.

 

 

They spend the next day together. Sasuke is going to be late home from the Academy, Itachi is acting strange and disconnected, and left as soon as breakfast was finished, even quieter than usual.

“What do you think is troubling him?” she asks, sitting next to Fugaku by the Koi pond.

“The coup. Anbu.” He stares down into the water. His shoulders are slumped hopelessly.

“Time is running out.” She doesn’t know just then how true her words are, but she thinks she can feel it. She can feel the pressure.

“Let’s not talk about him,” Fugaku says, and she can hear the sense of failure in his voice. He knows he’s made a mistake. He pushed too much, and Itachi was pushed to the wrong side.

He puts his hand over hers, squeezing gently.

They talk all day. In between lazy kisses and companionable silences. And she whispers all the things she hasn’t said to him in years. They wander the garden hand in hand, they stand in the sunshine with foreheads resting together. She makes him dango, and leaves some out where Itachi will see it when he comes home, and maybe he’ll take it.

They sit in Sasuke’s room and talk about how they love him and what they hope for his future.

When they run out of words, the silence is no longer tense or awkward.

It’s just the way it used to be.

 

 

She is sitting in the kitchen when she starts to hear the screaming.

Far away, muffled, cutting off unexpectedly. It rolls like a wave through the compound.

Fugaku doesn’t react at first. He stays completely still, looking into the tea she has made him that he hasn’t yet started to drink.

The next scream reaches the height of its pitch, then descends into a gurgle.

Then, Fugaku looks up at her. “I’m sorry,” he says simply.

“He’ll be waiting for you,” she says. “You’re the only one he’ll worry about.”

If it’s going to be a fight to the death, she should be at his side. That’s the only way, in fact, because Fugaku would lose to Itachi if he were alone, and they both know it.

“I know.” Now, he takes a sip of tea. It’s languid and relaxed, as though they have all the time in the world. As though nothing matters.

It’s just them, with time frozen around them, just the way things used to be. Time always felt like this when they started dating. Their own world, their own peace, nothing to distract.

The soundtrack of their clan dying around them is almost forgotten.

“He’s a good child,” Fugaku murmurs. “He’s like you.”

 _Yes, he is_ , she wants to say. Except she wouldn’t have the strength to tear down her family. Or maybe she would, if it was for Sasuke. Because she loves him more than she loves herself, and that’s another thing she and Itachi have in common.

“You should run,” he says softly. “I won’t fight him, so I won’t be able to protect you.”

He looks at her as though trying to apologize. But he doesn’t need to, because he never needs to apologize for not wanting to hurt their son.

“If I run, he has to chase me down, and that will make it harder for him.” She’s felt so much pain for Itachi, that a bit more will do her no harm. And certainly not if it eases some of his. She isn’t afraid, because Fugaku is with her. It feels like the past. They will face this united, as they should.

“I’ll be at your side. In life, and death, just as I promised.” She feels calm. There is no pressure, no terror. It’s just . . . peace.

Itachi is coming home.

They will be waiting for him.

Just the way things used to be.

Fugaku rises to his feet, and offers a hand to her.

He’s done it before, so many times. When they were young, and he was bashful and insecure. When she was pregnant and couldn’t hope to stand up on her own. She takes it, because they don’t have much time, and the memories are flooding back and filling her heart.

They are no longer young and foolish, but they are together.

He draws her into a hug, and she breathes in deeply, inhaling his scent and familiarity.

“I love you,” he whispers, words she hasn’t heard in an eternity, and she knows it’s true, because if he didn’t, and if she didn’t, they wouldn’t be here.

She nods against him, because he knows what it means. They’ve always been in tune with each other.

The screams are wilder now. Erratic, and uneven, and it tugs at her heart, because she knows Itachi must be stressed and upset, and she wishes she could do something to help him. Something to ease his burden, something to let him know _it will be okay._

She looks up at Fugaku, and he meets her eyes tenderly.

“He’s going to be upset,” she whispers, because she is still his mother, and his pain is still her pain.

“We’ll make it easy for him,” Fugaku replies, raising a hand to wipe a tear from her cheek that she hadn’t even felt forming. “He’ll be alright. He’s your son.”

With his long black hair that hung like hers, and his soft little smile, and his impossibly wide charcoal eyes. He wasn’t her son anymore, though. Now he was someone else. Now he was a ninja, a warrior, a force to be reckoned with. Since the very first time he held a kunai in his soft baby hands, she had known a day like this would come. “He used to be.”

She lets him lead her from the kitchen. She sits next to him, side by side, united the way they were supposed to be, the way they always wanted to be. It feels good to be agreeing with him again. It feels good to know that they are still one person, one mind and one heart.

The screams are fewer now.

She glances at him, at his strong, stoic face, and then turns her gaze to the floor.

And then they wait.

 

 


End file.
